Out on parole and desperate for cash, Scott Matheson was captured in intercepted calls discussing selling firearms, collecting debts and doing "jobs" for people.
Matheson's pursuit of a few thousand dollars to pay rent and buy drugs would wind up endangering numerous lives and causing nearly $40 million worth of damage.
It would end with the 45-year-old spending the better part of the next decade behind bars.
Within the space of two months, those "jobs" included being contracted by a "big developer" to torch the Lake Macquarie City Council administration building, the blaze causing extensive damage and displacing 400 staff for at least three years.
It involved being hired by a drug dealer he called "mum" to shoot up the home of a rival at Elermore Vale, the gunman peppering the front door with bullets while six people, including two children, slept inside.
Then, when police raided Matheson's Bar Beach home after his arrest, they found two hidden cavities behind kitchen cupboards where the parolee had secreted six firearms.
The extent of Matheson's organised crime contract business can be revealed after the 45-year-old was on Friday jailed for a maximum of 12 years, with a non-parole period of eight years.
He was one of two men who broke into the council building at Speers Point in the early hours of November 27, 2024 and poured petrol all over the ground floor.
The pair lit the blaze and it spread rapidly as they fled.
The blaze displaced 400 staff, forced the council to find an alternative location for their meetings and it is estimated it will cost about $38.5 million to repair before the building is ready to be reoccupied, at the earliest, in October 2027.
Nonetheless, the shadowy developer who "wanted a tank to run through the place" was unhappy with the "job".
And Matheson was behind the wheel of his ute when he drove along Lake Road at Elermore Vale in the early hours of January 29 last year and his passenger fired out the window into the front of a house and a car parked outside.
Each time, Matheson had been involved in "significant" organisation and planning and had been hired to carry out the attack for financial gain.
The arson was committed to pay rent because he was broke and the drive-by shooting was done in exchange for drugs and cash, Newcastle District Court heard.
Matheson has spent most of the last two decades behind bars and was on parole for firearm offences at the time of both contracted attacks.
With time served, he will be eligible for parole in August 2033.
Tony Charles Graham, who was the getaway driver in the Lake Macquarie Council fire, was on Friday jailed for a maximum of three-and-a-half years, with a non-parole period of two years and three months.
Judge Tim Gartelmann, SC, said Graham's role was less serious and the 55-year-old maintained he thought Matheson and the other man were just going to commit a minor act of vandalism.
The Newcastle Herald revealed in December the arsonists were hired by a middle-man to cause as much damage as possible to the council building in Main Road, Speers Point, and looked like they had done a professional job.
They spray painted over the lenses of exterior CCTV cameras, wore all black, including gloves, broke into the building and then armed with a jerry can full of petrol each, started a massive blaze that ripped through the first two floors and caused extensive damage.
They were in and out quickly, but the three men then drove straight to Warners Bay McDonald's where they were captured on CCTV going through the drive-thru.
The decision would ultimately lead to their downfall, with detectives able to identify Matheson and Graham as being two of the three men in the car.
Police then began intercepting their telephone calls and text messages as the two men discussed the fire, their chances of being identified, their desire to be paid by the middle-man and the shadowy, hard-to-nail down "big developer" who wanted the "job" done, but was unhappy with the outcome of the blaze.
"What he's asking for [is] something pretty extravagant too by the sounds of it," Graham said.
"He's asking for way too much. He wanted a tank to run through the place."
Matheson then replied: "Yeah, that's right. But when you look at the story on it, like, it's f---ing huge. "It's millions of dollars it's thrown off and caused all kind of shit".
Graham then replied: "It's upset the people [the] way he wanted it done, that's for sure. "Personally, I thought you'd achieved a lot. You achieved what you went to do".
Graham was arrested on January 16 this year, detectives finding him in bed at East Maitland with a rifle on the floor next to him.
Matheson was arrested outside Newcastle courthouse on February 6 and charged over the arson and the shooting.
